Monday, February 17, 2014

NMIMS is a good management institute located in Ville Parle , Mumbai. The process for the Admission to their flagship course includes registering for their exam NMAT during september of the previous year , appearing for the exam , raw scores announcements , scaled scores in january and appearing for the CD-PI (Case-Discussion - Personal-Interview) rounds in Mumbai itself.

Previous night , I had a practice telephonic interview with my guide. He asked me some relevant questions to my profile and father's business which I should be fluent with. So post-tele-interview I started reading about the questions online and it was nearly 2.00am searching various linked links.Woke up a bit late and reached ville-parle in the morning.I was not getting a single auto from parla to NM and so walked all the way. Reached the venue 45 minutes late.Registered myself with the group leader (I was the last one) ! Just as i registered , she (leader) told our whole group to follow her to the CD (Case discussion) room. We were around 12 people in the group and unlike IMT , this time I was positioned at number 7.
So in the CD room , I was exactly in the middle and both the sides were open for a 180 view to get more impact while presenting the points.

Case statement : Gujarat (132) , Delhi (39) , Maharashtra (452) , Andhra pradesh (568) , Rajasthan (46) and all states were given. The number in the bracket indicates the number of engineering colleges in that state. The detailed description was given and there were two options :
(1) Shut down the low quality education colleges in the state
(2) Create more employment opportunities so that every student of all colleges gets placed
You are the education minister of your state. Take actions.

I noted some good points where i can make a good entry. No. 3 participant started with a very vague point , I don't even remember what he said but it was not worth to hear. And the usual process went on. Someone cut him and started opposing , a third one cut him and started opposing !
After a minute or so , I was able to get attention while raising my voice. Started with the point that : If you look sincerely at the case statement , it is mentioned that you are the education minister of YOUR state. Being a minister on gujarat state , I would first set up a committee to find out the core reasons of quality degradation. Continued the point uptill 20-25 seconds to which everyone was listening good. And the point got noted too (I had observed). After my completion , again No. 3 came up with some irrelevant point as in India should adopt a China education model , which he didn't knew what was as he couldn't asnwer a counter question on it. A clear loosing candidate.Few good points came up afterwards and i entered 5-6 times with a new perspective regarding managing seats as per the geographical locations i.e. boost IT-CE seats in karnataka , increase textile and chemical seats in gujarat , petroleum seats near orrisa etc. The last 5 minutes , everyone concluded good except no 3 because he was creating a chaos.I gave examples on the line of Vibrant gujarat , MOUs signed and creation of employment as a result.

I knew it went good as 3 of the students in the lift told me that you were good and introduced themselves(One NITian , other 2 bombay localites). Waited for 45 minutes for my PI turn.

M : Afternoon Sir , afternoon ma'am. Kept the file on the table.
P2 : Afternoon mitesh , so what is the meaning of your name ?
M : Sir a name necessarily doesn't possess a meaning everytime. Its a general noun just like hitesh , jitesh , mitesh , which do not have any meaning unless you break it.
P2 : Smiled
P3 : Okay so mitesh , tell me 2 incidents of your life which has been able to make you what you are right now.
M : Described two incidents looking at all their faces as it was a general question
P3 : Seemed satisfied. So mitesh , do you read ?
M : Ma'am if you are talking about novels , i've read only a few of them which my scientist at PRL suggested me , but I do go through a lot of online material.
P3 : What about Music ?
M : Yes ma'am i am interested into music specially EDM .
P3 : You mean electronic dance music right ?
M : Exactly
P3 : So who do you follow and what is the current industry scenario right now
M : Described about deadmau5 , charts , grossings , their incomes and their career development. Described the EDM scenario in LA , USA and the happenings in India.
P3 : So you seem much interested , i am sure you would have visited sunburn this time.
M : It was scheduled 26-27-28 this time and I had my XAT , the next week so I couldn't make it this time.
(I was kinda bored as to why was she asking all these stuff)
P3 : So if we select you for NM , would you go to the event next december.
M : It depends on the situation at that time.While I was coming to NM today morning from Borivalli , today's TOI said that LEO's should always be given a try , they never disappoint you on any front !

All of them laughed loudly

P3 : towards P2 , I am done.

And then the disaster happened.

P2 : Mitesh , what was your major ?
M : E & C Sir
P2 : So what is a P-N Junction diode (1st year engineering).
M : Sir i only remember its name and nothing else , i would not bluff here. I dont know.
P2 : But you also worked in electronics.
M : Yes sir , i've worked in semiconductors but mostly its digital
P2 : So lets get into digital then
P2 : I'll give you a process , you just name them :
He described me a long connection as in the first stage , second stage and the third stage. Name them.
I could not get what was he trying to say , so i asked him to get somewhat more into details. Still I was not able to get him but i knew the third stage was Monitor.
M : Sir the first one is Design but i do not know the NAME specific to it. The third is Monitor.
P2 : Gave me the names , but this was no where digital.

The whole process was closely observed by P3 and i guess i have lost marks here !

P1 : Tell us everything about your work-ex.
M : told everything
P1 : Why MBA now after 3 years of experience. You could easily earn what a manager earns post MBA in these two years and no fee losses too !
M : Sir there are a lot of aspects why i want to do an MBA. The top reasons include fast scaling the corporate ladder , interest in machine learning and technical decision making techniques (which cannot be learned in a paid tution class) , peer learning and network among the top firms of the world. Explained the process as "why now" with : the people who joined the industry during a boom had their career at peak in a very short span of time while those who graduated during the slowdown/crisis period had difficulties in their career (gave examples of a student who passed iim-a during 2008 crisis and his current position and a person who graduated during the dotcom boom). The discussion went on with the points that if Mr Modi becomes the PM , the economy would improve and that would be a very good period to graduate in 2016. The discussion went on for few minutes on why the economy would improve if modi arrives but that was really long.
P1 : Quickly , tell us 3 things , which you learned from the industry uptill now
M : mentioned 1 and 2 immediately and took a bit long to get the 3rd one.
P2 : Started grilling me on my father's business. I told him about the whole trackline i wanted to follow during the next 10 years but somehow he was purposely going the other side.
To answer him good , I mentioned about the e-commerce prospects in India post 2009.
M : Sir i saw a lot of potential in the e-comm , how huge flipkart and myntra have grown. In the same line of thought , I had made a attempt to get online in footwear. Gave him a link writing it on the paper.
That was my website (Monica is my engineering classmate and she made me this free website in just a matter of 4-5 hours which came a lot in handy during that time).

P3 at once checked it in her tablet.
She showed it to everyone else and I cut them while showing.

M : Sir , these are the best sellers and I just wanted to see if it works , but my efforts were not that fruitful. Got only 3 queries in a matter of 4 months.
P2 : No but atleast you got something and all startups work this way. It is a very good initiative.

P2 : Mitesh , I am really getting hungry for the lunch , so final question , how would you develop your business so that you can grow it into an industry ?
M : Described about getting online and getting into e-commerce rather than manufacturing and production based industry. Targeting only tier 3 and 4 cities first and some farting here and there about the market penetration and stuff. Okay mitesh , we are done. P

P2 made a handshake and smiled.

Results : In march

Lets hope positive.

It was a friday , and i was in bombay. Jatin and his gf came up and we went to pop tate's andheri , saki naka.Got drunk like anything , for good for bad , dont know but a nice overall day :)

Thursday, February 13, 2014

IMT (Institute of Management Technology) Ghaziabad is one of
the good institutes in India for an MBA.

For details , check out the B-School rankings by Business
standard and Outlook to get an overview about the college.

Interview Details :

Venue : XIMR , Marinelines , Mumbai

Time : 8.30 am

Process : Group Discussion followed by Personal Interview

Date : 13th Feb 2014

Reached the venue at 8.00 am and had a sandwich at the Xavier's canteen.Worth a try !

Entered the document verification room where I waited for 45 minutes for my turn. A tit-bit Hi and Hellos with all the aspirants there. I was into the Panel 4 and participant 1 .

After verification of documents , the instructor lead us to a classroom on the top floor.The panelists assigned us to the respective seats. I was number 1 and the seating arrangement was in a "U" shape , so i had a bit of disadvantage of having a corner seat.

GD process :

Problem Statement : New delhi : Proximity to Tokyo or Beijing

Thinking time : 5 minutes

Discussion : 10 minutes

Participants : 17 members

Summarize GD : 5 minutes

I was able to make only 2 good entries because there was a lot of chaos in the GD. Everyone was shouting like hell and there was a girl who was at the center position who polluted the whole decorum. Constantly opposing all the views said by anyone and raising voice uptill limits. For my 2 entries I also shouted like anything , literally nanga shouting if you can get it.

IMO , the whole group would loose marks as it was not a fruitful discussion.

We concluded with a few normal suggestions majorly on the side of China and friendship.

P1 : ( Constantly smiling ). I too smiled . So mitesh how many members do you have in your family ?

M : Described about the family and the background in Junagadh.

P1 : What does your father do ?

M : Described about the whole footwear business in detail.

P1 : So why don't you join your father's business and develop it . It would always be more profit-making?

M : Sir , I do not interest in my business as of now. I am not neglecting the opportunity but as of now , I want to have some industry experience and 10-15 years down the line think about other options of the circumstances in that time are feasible.

A bit of silence for 4-5 seconds.

P1 : As I can see in your form , you have mentioned ASIC over here. What do you mean by ASIC ?

M : Described about ASICs and VIPs I worked on.

P1 : Can you explain it in more detail ?

M : Described the whole strcture of the firm , the hierarchy , the work allotted to me and the modules i worked on. The whole model and stuff .

P2 : So Mitesh , on that note what would you prefer to be questioned on ? Elec or Comm ?

M : Sir , I have always been inclined to electronics and my work was also in VLSI so I would prefer it .

P2 : Paused for a moment. Mitesh , just out of curiosity , how many components does basic 8085 consists of ?

M : Sir , I do not remember the exact ,

P2 : No , no , just out of curiosity , just answer what can it be , take a wild guess .

M : In millions. (fucked up here , beacuse the base model consisted of only 6k gates while it grew into milllions after a while in the next gen processors)

P2 : Okay.

M : In between , the gate related discussion , I described Moore's law regarding the number of transistors in future.

P2 : What is Moore's law ? In detail ?

M : Gave a defination , but Sir i am not sure whether this is 100 % correct as i guess i am missing some element in the defination.

P2 : Revolved me in and around the processor and Moore's law thing for 3-4 minutes.

M : I said a straight NO to some of the questions which I didn't knew about , he was OKAY with it.

P2 : You have good prospects in US. Why dont you go to US and earn some quick money ?

M : Described the whole thing I was asked in my Symbiosis Interview. Seemed satisfied.

P2 : (Suddenly) , How much a Tie cost ? Is it Expensive these days ?

M : It depends on the brands and the quality you want .

P2 : No but tell me a amount for a buy.

M : The basic Tie starts from 400 /- I guess but I do not have much information in detail.

P2 : Can't you spend 400 odd rupees on wearing a professional Tie instead of a Party Tie which you are currently wearing ?

(It was almost a professional Tie but it had 2 dots in the middle , which he noticed)

I felt a bit awkward at that moment.

M : Smiled. Sir I admit it is my fault and I am sorry for the mistake.

P2 : Smiled (He was grilling me uptill now).

P2 : So why MBA ?

M : Told the basic reasons and explained the reasons ?

P2 : Is your father an MBA ?

M : No , Sir.

P2 : So then it means your father doesn't know how to run a business right ?

M : Sir I never mentioned that , for entrepreneurship , you need an MBA ? I am basically focusing on the industrial aspects which require an MBA for good exposure. seemed satisfied. In between , I mentioned about the opportunities in Junagadh too.

P1 : So why dont you want to go back to Junagadh ? Don;t you like your hometown ?

M : Framed the answer properly and described the standard of living in Junagadh , in Ahmedabad , in Mumbai and in California from an angle to Internet access and speed. Discussed opportunities in Tier 2 more than tier 1 and told about start-ups in ahmedabad (Dexter consulting , Just mexican franchise , Cityshor) etc. Went on for 3-4 minutes

Both of them nodded positively.

P1 : Okay , mitesh one last question ?

P1 : Do you think being participant no 1 puts you in a disadvantage ?

M : Absolutely No Sir .

P1 : The students outside will know about the questions asked to you and they can prepare well marring your chances ?

M : That can go the other way round too , they may get stressed and loose out confidence. But I do not guess that would make much difference to well prepared candidates.

P1 : Okay mitesh but our main aim here is to check students at par . So please dont discuss questions and answers with them.

M : as you say Sir , not an issue.

P1 , P2 : Thanks Mitesh .

While returning a lot of candidates were waiting outside , I pretended to be on the phone and told them i'll be back in 5 minutes and let you know the process , which never occured !

Had a talk with one of my friends after the interview as she gives me a good judjement on how it went .
Had a round near Marinelines and Leopold area , I love downtown mumbai cobblestone area like anything !

Overall an average interview because of some mistakes in the 8085 and Moore's things. Tie was a disaster.

NMIMS tomorrow . Valentine day tomorrow . Gearing up for it . Hope all goes well.

Monday, February 10, 2014

To secure an admission into Symbiosis University and its related B-Schools , one needs to appear for their entrance exam called SNAP. The process includes registering and paying for SNAP exam, appearing for the exam , results after a month , and getting calls from institutes of which you clear the cut-offs.

I had my stay at cousin's place in pune. Got up early in the morning and drove to kirkee from Kondhwa.

I did not have the photocopies of some of the documents and so got them photocopied and rushed for documents verification. The student co-ordinators were mostly girls and they were quite co-operative ;).

All the aspirants were divided in the group of 8 and a First year student was leading the group. He answered all the queries we had over there. The guy was quite friendly and so i tried to extract as much information about the panels , chances , how to impress them , panels' nature , type of questions , from him as possible.

After an introductory session and breakfast , we had the WAT (Written Aptitude Test). An answer sheet consisting of 8 pages was provided and a question paper. The question paper had 2 questions as follows :

(1) "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world" - Nelson Mandela.

Write an essay on the above topic in 650 words.

(2)

Interprete this image and write down all your interpretations explaining each of them .

Answer : The group leader had told be to be creative in this question and so i wrote various shades regarding this image as in

After the WAT , we again had a breakfast and I waited for an hour before my turn came in for a PI (Personal Interview / Personal Interaction). My turn arrived and the group leader asked 3 copies of my resume to give it to the panelists. After 15-20 seconds , I entered the interview - room.

Panel consisted of :

(P1) 42-45 aged person with a moustache like kejriwal from industry , sitting on the left.

(P2) 58-60 aged person looked like professor and had a firm attitude.

(P3) 40-42 aged person with specs and moustache and a marathi look.

(M) Me

Interview :

M : Morning Sir (Looking at all of them)

P2 : Good morning Mitesh , please have a seat

P2 : (After a pause) So Mitesh , quickly tell me something about yourself which is not on this resume.

M : (This was a very basic question and so i had prepared for it) Told everything about born and brought up , folded the whole academics in a single sentence , told about the engineering and extra-curriculars , my final year project at Mt. Abu and stressed more on the work experience.Ended my sentence with culture at my company and the boss.

P2 : So , who is your Boss ? How is he , friendly or effective ?

M : Described about the boss' journey and told about his characterstics.

P2 : You are going to do an MBA and you would be the boss after a few years , so what would you prefer ?

M : I would act according to the nature of the employees under me . If they are of the nature that they would not work untill they have deadlines nearing them , I would give them pseudo-deadlines and be more on the stricter side but if the employees are self-responsible , a friendly nature would suffice.

P1 : So , Mitesh you have had leadership positions at many places , so what do YOU think are the qualities in YOU which makes you lead the people.

M : Sir , i need around 30 seconds to frame my answer . Took my time and framed the answer .

Told about the roles during school , roles during engineering , roles during cultural fests and robotics and professional life.Covered how did i do it , problems i faced and things i thought you should act in particular situations for betterment of the whole group. This went on for 4-5 minutes. and at last i told him in a rhetoric way that I hope Sir you are able to get the overall picture to which he nodded positively.

P2 : Okay so mitesh , suppose if there is an unethical project but it is moral. That project would benefit your firm a lot. Would you participate in that project ?

M : After thinking for a while , No sir i would never compromise with ethics , BUT i would not stop them for executing the project. I would somehow step out of the project citing certain specific reasons to which the manager cannot oppose (he smiled to this response). Sir can i explain this with a real-time example.

P2 : Ohh please please go ahead

M : Described the incidents about the problem of "shadow resources" during a foreign clients project which is unethical but moral (Working professionals would understand this practically).

P2 : seemed satisfied

P2 : Looked towards P3

P3 : So Mitesh , Why do you want to do an MBA ?

M : Explained the reasons (I had prepared this pretty good)

P2 : What after MBA , companies you are targeting and general stereotype questions.

M : Had them quite good

P1 Interrupted

P1 : You have mentioned that you have entrepreneurial plans in future ? Can you explain ?

M : Sir if you notice it in detail , there is an 'IF' at the starting point. So if the conditions are met and if life goes according to my plans , then i WOULD think of it as I have worked in start-ups and i can see a lot of benefits on all the front.

P1 : What kind of benefits ?

M : I knew he wanted to hear something related to society. So i started with that it provides more job opportunities for fellow citizens , helps in building the economy , reverses brain-drain and stopping students from leaving india just due to lucrative packages as startups in india are cash flows if they go good. And ater all you have enough money at the end of cycle. Described about www.Onlineprasad.com as i had experience as a content writer in it.

P1 : seemed satisfies and smiled.

A silence prevailed for 4-5 seconds and all of them looked to one another.

P2 : Thanks Mitesh and all the best for your future.

M : Thank You SIR. Smiled. :)

Came out of the room with a positive feeling.

While I was leaving the center , I passed P2 while he was having a smoke. Stopped there are he asked me about my personal details. Told about Junagadh , my father , my business. I politely questioned him about the quality of interview. He smiled and said "Hope positive beta".

The Terrorists' Chief then punches the Commando so hard that he falls back a couple of feet on his back.

But as the Commando touches the ground, he rolls over, pulls a 9 mm Silenced pistol hidden in his boots and shoots the Chief dead.

In the resulting confusion, he emptied his Pistol on six terrorists, then with his knife he slashed the throat of one, and with an AK-47, which he took from one of the already dead terrorists, sprayed the rest of the terrorists killing the remainder.

In a flash, all of the Terrorists including their Chief, were dead.

As the soldier was untying the Kashmiri Separatist and the reporter, they asked him - 'Why didn't you just shoot them all in the first place? Why did you ask him to punch him?

'Because' replied the soldier, 'if I had fired the First Shot, you two assholes would have reported that I was the aggressor and the root cause of all the bloodshedding in Kashmir !!'